DaVita Inc.

Good evening. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the DeVita first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star and then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star, then the number two. Thank you. Mr. Eliasson, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, and welcome to our first quarter conference call. We appreciate your continued interest in our company. I'm Nick Eliasson, Group Vice President of Investor Relations, and joining me today are Javier Rodriguez, our CEO, and Joel Ackerman, our CFO. Please note that during this call we may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. All of these statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. For further details concerning these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our first quarter earnings press release and our SEC filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, all subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other subsequent filings that we make with the SEC. Our forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us, and we do not intend and undertake no duty to update these statements except as may be required by law. Additionally, we'd like to remind you that during this call, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures is included in our earnings press release, furnished to the SEC, and available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Javier Rodriguez.

Thank you, Nick. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. The Vita Foundation is clinical excellence, driven by operating rigor that produces durable results. We have consistently delivered exceptional clinical outcomes and strong financial performance, and this quarter is no exception. To ensure we sustain and build upon this foundation, we're actively investing in our future capabilities. In a rapidly evolving landscape, we're taking a pragmatic approach to expanding our IT systems and digital infrastructure. These targeted technology investments are designed to empower our clinical teams and serve as a backbone for our next chapter of clinical and operational excellence. Today, I'll walk through our first quarter performance, share how technology is enhancing our operations, provide an update on ACA plans, and finish with our outlook for the remaining of the year. But first, I'll start, as we always do, with a clinical highlight. This quarter, we're highlighting the continued momentum of integrated kidney care, or IKC, our value-based care business. In the latest results from CMS's Comprehensive Kidney Care Contracting Program, or CKCC, we delivered year-over-year improvements across all three key measurements, which are gross savings rates, total quality score, and high performing status. Clinically, this means our IKC care model, together with our physician partners, is improving the health and well-being of our patients. Economically, we generated the highest total aggregate savings of any participant, driven by our 4.5% improvement in gross saving rate since the beginning of the program. This is a clear example of how IKC clinical rigor paired with data-driven insights is delivering better outcomes for our patients and more sustainable model for the future of kidney care. Turning to the first quarter, we delivered a strong financial result ahead of our expectations without performance from each element of our U.S. dialysis trilogy. Treatment volume, revenue per treatment, and cost per treatment. This balanced out performance reflects the strength of our team and our focus on consistent execution. I'll touch on a couple of key metrics that contribute to the quarter and will help shape the remainder of the year. Starting with volume. In the first quarter, our treatment volume was slightly ahead of forecast. Quarter end census was ahead of plan as a result of better than forecasted mortality. partially offset by lower than forecasted admits. Census also benefited from patient transfers in related to ongoing clinic closures by Fresenius. Although negligible in the first quarter volume, we anticipate that these transfers will contribute to positive treatment growth over the remainder of the year. As a result, we're raising our volume growth expectations for the full year from flat to a range of 25 to 50 basis point increase. Approximately half of the increase is from better underlying performance and half is related to transfer in from Fresenius. Switching to labor, Q1 was ahead of plan, primarily from better productivity, which we expect to sustain over the balance of the year. Let me turn to our technology strategy and the investments we're making to strengthen our operations and ultimately our clinical outcomes. We're taking a disciplined approach to AI that we've been building towards for years, and we're seeing that groundwork translate into real impact. Our strategy has two parts. First, we've modernized our data infrastructure. This means standardizing and integrating high-quality data across the enterprise across through systems like our proprietary EMR platform. That work gives us a differentiated foundation to power AI applications at scale. Second, we're actively deploying AI solutions across clinical, operational, and business use cases with a focus on supporting our caregivers, improving how we operate, and drive measurable impact. One example is ScheduleHub, a new tool that dynamically processes changes in each center's patient census, capacity, and teammate availability to recommend optimal patient and staffing schedules in real time. Given the complexity of the center scheduling, we expect this will reduce administrative burden for our facility administrators and enhance teammate experience while supporting patient care. This is one of many examples where our sustained IT investments translate into tangible scale benefits across the enterprise. We're still early in our AI journey, but given the strength of our data foundation and the pace of our deployment, we are well positioned to outperform both clinically and operationally as technology evolves. Next, on ACA plan enrollment. Based on what we know today, ACA open enrollment is trending toward a slightly favorable outcome relative to our prior expectations of an approximately 40 million headwind in 2026. This favorability will be partially offset by more patients selecting lower-level bronze plans, which translates to higher out-of-pocket costs and modest RPT headwinds. We will gain greater clarity on the enrollment outcome and mixed impact as we get deeper into the year. I will conclude my remarks with our financial outlook for the remainder of the year. With our first quarter results, we're off to a strong start for the year. As a result, we're raising and narrowing our guidance for adjusted operating income to a range of $2.15 billion to $2.25 billion. Similarly, we're raising our adjusted EPS guidance to a range of $14.10 to to $15.20 per share. The increased guidance is primarily the result of our higher volume forecast for the year and lower patient care costs. I will now turn the call over to Joel to discuss our financial performance in more detail. Thank you, Javier.